City Voices

LANDGREN REMOTE CITY COUNCIL MEETINGS GETTING OUT OF HAND?

BAD ADVICE

Creepy boss is her dad’s friend

Shaun Connolly

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

DEAR SHAUN: My boss has been hitting on me at work, and making inappropriate comments about my body. Ordinarily, I would just report him to HR, but he’s a longtime friend of the family and he gave me the job as a favor to my dad. What should I do? – No Good Options

Dear Options: Your dad is friends with this guy? I suggest you write in for some advice on how to get your dad new friends, because that is clearly something that needs to be done. I will stick to the task at hand. Don’t hit on him per se. But definitely talk about his weird body. If he is a friend of your dad’s then he is an older gentleman and unless he’s George Clooney, well I’m assuming he hasn’t aged the best. Say things like, “huh, I never noticed how your eyes recede like they are sinking in sand.” Or, “did you always have that much skin?” Or maybe, “thinning hair is really cute, it’s the equivalent of your scalp wanting to show a little leg.” Or even try, “can I see your hands, I want to see if I can find your adorable little liver spots.” This will most likely get you fired. But then you can ask your dad if he has any non-creepy friends that are hiring!

DEAR SHAUN: I am unable to read.

Dear Illiterate: Okay, this is fun because you won’t be able to read my response. I actually

FIRST PERSON

Homelessness issue on display at the librar y

Mary Reynolds

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

If you’ve ever taken the time to read it, you will see that the first line of the Worcester Public Library mission statement is to “serve as a gathering place that promotes the free exchange of ideas in our democratic society.” (Bear in mind for later reading that “mission” can also be defined as the vocation or calling of an organization.)

If you have visited the WPL any time in the last 20 years, you have obviously noted a dramatic increase in the number of homeless and otherwise needy people socializing outside the rear entrance. For many years, they were innocuous and even friendly. However, in the last few years, many of them have become shockingly aggressive and even follow you to your car seeking cash or cigarettes. Alas, do not complain or make a comment to a library staff member! They will vigorously defend their civil right to be there, that they “serve as a gathering place.” Amazing what a few words taken out of context produces. And to be fair to the staff, I’m not sure what they can do, anyway.

However, loitering individuals are problem that started years ago, actually in the ‘60s, with a different population — a group we called the library perverts. I was blessed to work at the WPL from my freshman year in high school until my senior year in college. And I do mean blessed — my mother had instilled in us a love of reading from a very early age — taking us to the Quinsigamond Branch of the Library once a week and letting us get an extra book if we had been “good” that week. (How clever was she ??)

So this was a great job for me — I would hurry and finish my work and then sneak into the stacks and read a book. And trust me, I was not the only page doing this!

Unfortunately, danger lurked. Many of us were Catholic High School girls who came directly to work from school, so we were clad in our uniforms, specifically, skirts. Often while we stood on stools to reshelf books, a “pervert” in the next aisle would push a mirror through the bottom shelf on his side and look up our skirts. While this was quite unnerving to us, I devised a simple solution that many of us adopted — simply shove a large group of books from the top shelf into that aisle, hopefully landing most of them squarely on his head. Thus the second great use of books at the WPL! Unfortunately, the problem got so out of control that the library finally hired the services of a Worcester policeman, the wonderful Officer Guittar. (Obviously in plain clothes). He was kind and efficient, and within months he had cleared out most of the “perverts.”

After I graduated from college, years passed before I visited the library again, but when my brother Paul began volunteering in the library book store, I would stop in now and then to visit him and make a purchase. I was aghast at

The main branch of the Worcester Public Library. FILE PHOTO

LETTER TO THE EDITOR Eyeing a way to celebrate heritage, diversity

Dale Wickenheiser

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

I read with interest Vanessa Joga’s letter (Worcester Mag 1/ 20/21) about immigrants and cultural connection. What my wife and I noticed when we moved to Worcester six years ago were all of the small family run businesses, our multi-ethnic neighborhood, and that nowhere did the City seem to celebrate the cultural diversity that Worcester seems to have. What we knew before coming here was that Worcester was a poor white city that had once been a mill town. We’ve since learned that a little less than a quarter of the City’s population are relatively recent immigrants from all over the world and that the people who are “from” here are almost as diverse. It’s a broad cultural mix that we didn’t know existed until we had lived here for several years and actively searched it out.

When the Notre Dame des Canadiens church was scheduled for demolition, I was one of the people who spoke (as part of the Save Notre Dame Alliance) trying to save it. I wondered aloud if, when a city removes the buildings that its people identified with, is it telling those people that along with those buildings, they too have outlived their usefulness and value. Neither are worth saving. Or celebrating. But, as the City moves forward with becoming “New Worcester,” I’m now wondering if it hasn’t been all of those people, with their mom and pop businesses and cultural celebrations, who have kept the City afloat and put it in a position to become “New Worcester.” The discussion about saving old buildings is a complicated and it’s not what I’m writing about. But it leads me to the open space where Notre Dame once stood. While the building is gone, could the site be used to celebrate and recognize the history of those who were there?

The same company that built 145 Front at City Square (I believe) have plans on a shelf somewhere for apartments to be built on that site. Frankly, I’ve been expecting someone to build a parking garage and gas station with a Dunky there to service the new ballpark crowd. But with the 300th anniversary of Worcester coming up this spring, and the recent arrival of people from Afghanistan, could we rethink the use of the site as we celebrate the City’s history and welcome new members to our community?

What if we were bold enough to create a new public park? An immigrant park. One that celebrates the history of the people who moved here.

As a park celebrating those arriving in Worcester, what if it had a visitor center? A place that helps those coming here to visit navigate the City. What if it began to tell the history of Worcester and was a starting point for immigrant trails that thread through the city to the various sites and neighborhoods that were defined by the groups that have come here?

Would groups like Guardians of Tradition be interested in helping build such a park and facility? It would require the involvement of the City (of course). But this can’t be something we ask ‘the City’ to do by itself. It would, and should, be an investment of all of the people of the city. I’m not sure how that happens. Or who would lead it.

But if the new ballpark is any indication, big new things can get done here. The Save Notre Dame Alliance dissolved when the fight for the church was over. But, as a starting point, the SNDA does still have a Facebook page that people can message.

Worcester was once a bold city. It was built by those who thought big, took risks and welcomed those who worked hard to build a better life. Can we celebrate those whose ancestors built this City, recognize those who’ve carried it to this point, and let them know that they have value as the foundation of Worcester as it strives to move forward.

Dale Wickenheiser lives in Worcester.

Library

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how many of the outsiders had moved inside to bathe in the public restrooms. Now I can understand that this is a place of obvious warmth and refuge for the homeless, however the bathrooms are unfit for use, and “the free ideas” exchanged in there if you enter when someone is bathing would make a sailor cringe.

I love the Worcester Public Library — I love its staff and its volunteers. In fact, I love all libraries. But has sheltering and defending the homeless and needy become its mission? If so, how do they protect the general public trying to safely enter and exit this beautiful building? And why is it specifically such a problem at the WPL? I have been to other places in the city that the homeless frequent, and they don’t harass or intimidate.

A visit to the library is a reminder to all of us that the city has much work to do in solving its homelessness problem. Shame on us! While the city brags about all of its new development, especially in the Canal District right around the corner, we fail to take care of our own and instead lure out-oftowners. At the same time, we are making it woefully difficult for long term residents to stay In the city. In fact, many of them have become homeless, and I’ll bet you know now where you can witness that.

Yes, get your books at the Worcester Public Library, but you will get so much more.

Mary Reynolds grew up on Vernon Hill, graduated from Assumption College, received a Master’s in Education from UNH, and two additional Masters. She worked in N.H. For 10 years, then returned to work in the Worcester Public Schools, first at St. Casimir’s Alternative School, and then at South High for 20 years as an English teacher to students with behavior disorders, and then as the school Literacy Coach.

Advice

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don’t know how you were able to send this email to me in the first place. I’ll assume that you are an adult that is writing in and not a child. If you are a child I apologize, but this is quick.

Be patient, you’ll learn soon enough. My guess is you have someone helping you. Or even better, you have a computer that reads things back to you. I will give a response for each scenario.

Person: You should learn to read. While I’m sure the person reading this to you right now is very sweet and helpful, they need to have their own life too. Plus, you are a person with your own agency that was willing to at least ask someone else to write in to the column for help on what to do next. Start small. Here’s a little hack. You can actually sign up for 5 free books from Dr. Seuss if you are a new parent. Just tell them you are having a kid and you’ll get 5 new books to help you start learning to read.

Those are the books I used to learn to read so many years ago.

Computer: Hoogahchaka, Hoogachaka, hooga, hooga hoogachaka.

That would sound so funny coming from a computer voice, right?

Worcester comedian Shaun Connolly provides readers bad advice in his weekly column. Send your questions to woocomedyweek@gmail.com.